I can't help but thinking that these changes seem fairly trivial. The article seems eager to claim that these are big deals. "The logo looks more modern"... Says who? The new-style buttons "[provide] more consistency between different browsers and operating systems". And less consistency between web pages on the same browser/system.
Anyway, it's confusing that the very first image, directly below the title, shows a search box that is tilted wrt its background. Now that would be innovate design... :-)
Well, some weeks ago Bing was claiming a profit of millions because they changed the hue of blue of their links.
All this "looks more modern", "provides more consistency" claims are subjective, sure, but if enough people think like this it's already a win for Google.
Anyway, it's confusing that the very first image, directly below the title, shows a search box that is tilted wrt its background. Now that would be innovate design... :-)